Europol

December 1, 2016

‘Avalanche’ Global Fraud Ring Dismantled

This post was originally published on this siteIn what’s being billed as an unprecedented global law enforcement response to cybercrime, federal investigators in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe today say they’ve dismantled a sprawling cybercrime machine known as “Avalanche” — a distributed, cloud-hosting network that for the past seven years has been rented out to fraudsters for use in launching countless malware and phishing attacks. The global distribution of servers used in the Avalanche crime machine. Source: Shadowserver.org According to Europol, the action was the result of a four-year joint investigation between Europol, Eurojust the FBI and authorities in the […]
December 13, 2016

‘Operation Tarpit’ Targets Customers of Online Attack-for-Hire Services

This post was originally published on this siteFederal investigators in the United States and Europe last week arrested nearly three-dozen people suspected of patronizing so-called “booter” services that can be hired to knock targeted Web sites offline. The global crackdown is part of an effort by authorities to weaken demand for these services by impressing upon customers that hiring someone to launch cyberattacks on your behalf can land you in jail. On Dec. 9, 2016, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Sean Sharma, a 26-year-old student at the University of California accused of using a booter service to […]
July 20, 2017

After AlphaBay’s Demise, Customers Flocked to Dark Market Run by Dutch Police

This post was originally published on this siteEarlier this month, news broke that authorities had seized the Dark Web marketplace AlphaBay, an online black market that peddled everything from heroin to stolen identity and credit card data. But it wasn’t until today, when the U.S. Justice Department held a press conference to detail the AlphaBay takedown that the other shoe dropped: Police in The Netherlands for the past month have been operating Hansa Market, a competing Dark Web bazaar that enjoyed a massive influx of new customers immediately after the AlphaBay takedown. The normal home page for the dark Web market […]
July 20, 2017

Exclusive: Dutch Cops on AlphaBay ‘Refugees’

This post was originally published on this siteFollowing today’s breaking news about U.S. and international authorities taking down the competing Dark Web drug bazaars AlphaBay and Hansa Market, KrebsOnSecurity caught up with the Dutch investigators who took over Hansa on June 20, 2017. When U.S. authorities shuttered AlphaBay on July 5, police in The Netherlands saw a massive influx of AlphaBay refugees who were unwittingly fleeing directly into the arms of investigators. What follows are snippets from an exclusive interview with Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa. Vendors on both AlphaBay and Hansa sold a range […]